Kylie Jenner is Timothée Chalamet's type
Timmy's fans are having a collective menty b for no reason.
Keep scrolling for a peek into the team behind Pop Crave.
Sophie Turner Isn’t a Bad Mom. You’re Just a Misogynist
A new piece by EJ Dickson for Rolling Stone explores how Joe Jonas is weaponising the press against his soon-to-be ex-wife Sophie Turner to paint her as a bad mom.
On September 3rd, TMZ reported that Joe and Sophie were headed for divorce after four years of marriage.
Joe officially filed for divorce on September 5th citing the marriage is "irretrievably broken."
For days, media outlets have published stories about the split with the same glaring narrative — Sophie Turner is a bad mom.
“What is somewhat unusual is the specific messaging the media — presumably, with assistance from the Jonas camp — is using: that the marriage ended not because that is unfortunately what more than half of marriages in the U.S. do, but because Turner was somehow deficient in her child-rearing duties,” writes Dickson.
Dickson notes that it’s rare to see the media “being so explicit in its bias against working mothers.”
One report attributes the split to “different lifestyles” where Sophie “likes to party, he likes to stay at home.” Another claims that Joe has cared for their two children “pretty much all of the time” over the past three months, even while his band was touring. The most recent report suggests the marriage ended because Joe’s Ring camera “captured Sophie saying and/or doing something that made him realize the marriage was over.”
These obvious attempts from Joe and his PR team have largely backfired. Audiences see through the pointed coverage of this divorce and many are now convinced that it was Joe who did the marriage-ending Bad Thing, noting this targeted press tour could be a way to get ahead of whatever bombshell will soon drop about the man who dumped Taylor Swift on a 27-second phone call.
Though it’s somewhat refreshing to see the internet shun Joe’s smear campaign against the mother of his children, Dickson insists it’s still “working well enough that it’s setting a pretty bad precedent” for mothers and women who hope to one day be mothers.
“It is deeply bothersome that in 2023, the media — and, by extension, presumably Jonas’ team — made a calculated decision to capitalize on decades of right-wing-driven rhetoric bullying women who make a concerted effort to balance work with family, to behave as they are supposed to.”
Read the full story via Rolling Stone.
She was a child-free woman enjoying her Saturday. Then came the culture warriors.
On the topic of women and societal expectations, a 29-year-old woman found herself in the middle of this ongoing culture war when she posted a TikTok about her weekend plans.
TikTok user Julia Mazur went viral this week when she chronicled her Saturday as a child-free, single woman. Posting to her then 7,000 followers, Julia said she stayed in bed until mid-morning and was planning to learn how to make shakshuka that day.
By Sunday, conservative media personality Matt Walsh had reposted her video to X (formerly Twitter), to his 2.4 million followers, calling Julia “too stupid to realize how depressing this is.”
Walsh and many other right-wing media personalities are part of a larger conservative movement that promotes “traditional family values.”
His post about Julia has been viewed over 34 million times.
Walsh’s post on X sent an avalanche of hate towards Julia from conservative pundits.
“All of a sudden on Sunday, I started receiving hateful comments, and then I caught wind that he had posted my TikTok,” Julia told Kat Tenbarge for NBC News. “My mental health was not in a good place to be reading that, and I felt scared.”
Julia’s video was not political. Rather, her content functions more as promotional material for her dating and relationships podcast ‘Pretty Much Done’, where she discusses moving past the expectation of being married with children before 30.
“Some of his followers said I was going to die alone, that I should actually die and never leave my house, I should be sexually assaulted, I’m pathetic, I’m a whore, and that I was dead behind my eyes,” Julia said.
Following the hate, many users also came to Julia’s defence, including billionaire Mark Cuban who was asked his opinion on Julia’s video by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller— that’s how big this got.
“It’s none of my fucking business,” Cuban replied. “Seriously Stephen. Why so much hate from you?
Julia says she hopes her content makes people feel less alone, proving that you can be happy and fulfilled without marriage and children.
Read the full story via NBC News.
Angelica ASMR: Ex-OnlyFans creator undergoes drastic transformation from “communist to catholic”
ASMR enthusiasts are noticing a concerning pattern among their favourite artists, as it seems another popular creator has fallen into the conservative pipeline.
Angelica ASMR began posting ASMR content in 2016. She has since amassed over 650K subscribers for her unconventional ASMR role plays.
Like Gwen Swinarton— an ASMR creator turned aspiring tradwife— Angelica later joined OnlyFans and was active on the platform until May 2023. After she stopped posting explicit content, she returned to her YouTube channel with a video titled “Onlyfans Hurts Young Girls.”
She said that OnlyFans can be dangerous for anyone “under 23” years old or “people with people-pleasing habits, anyone that has a mental illness.”
Angelica explained that OnlyFans money can sometimes lead women to “gaslight” themselves and push their boundaries in order to meet the “demands and desires of grown men who have perverted imaginations.”
Angelica’s viewers grew concerned when she began sharing some of her other beliefs, particularly after she detailed her transition from “Anarcho-Communist to Catholic.”
In the video, Angelica criticised the US government and American political culture. She said she finds fault with liberalism, claiming people who subscribe to this philosophy have inappropriately co-opted Marxist ideals for power and money. Later, Angelica said the United States has plunged further into a “police state” since 9/11— a belief common within many right-wing circles.
“Because of the hypocrisy and because of the lack of forgiveness, Christian teachings started to appeal to me. Ironically, because typically, churches are the ones associated with hypocrisy and lack of forgiveness,” she said.
After exploring her new-found commitment to Christianity with her audience, Angelica continued to detail her problems with radical feminism and leftist ideology on her YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
In one Instagram story, Angelica explained why she hates “queer ideology,” insinuating that these theorists normalise sexual deviance and pedophilia.
Angelica posted a mock apology video for her discriminatory comments.
Though the exact trigger behind Angelica’s transformation remains unclear, many longtime fans believe it has something to do with her experience on OnlyFans.
“I think she went through some serious bad shit related to her OnlyFans (which is why she came out with 2 different videos about how bad it is) and has been on some kind of spiral, and as a result, is leaning HARD in the other direction to attempt to “offset” the OF trauma,” one Reddit user wrote.
Read the full story via Centennial World.
Kylie Jenner is Timothée Chalamet’s type
Shannon McNamara of the Fluently Forward podcast breaks down why Kylie Jenner is Timothée Chalamet’s type following the first photos of the couple recently emerging.
Kylie and Timothée went public with their romance at Beyoncé’s birthday concert on Monday night in L.A.
The photos of the couple kissing and hugging sent Timothée fans into a tailspin, saying they felt “sad,” “furious", and “distressed” over the images.
For example, Club Chalamet, a fan account that’s been widely criticised for taking their parasocial relationship with the actor too far, has called Kylie a stalker multiple times and insists she knows that Timothée doesn’t sleep with Kylie.
In response to this public fan meltdown, Shannon posted a TikTok video and a podcast episode that chronicles Timothée’s dating history, claiming it “lines up for him wanting to date Kylie Jenner.”
In going through who Timothée has publicly dated— including Lily-Rose Depp and Lourdes Leon— Shannon shows that the actor likes to date dark-haired model/influencers who are often also nepo babies. And who is the reigning queen of that category? Kylie Jenner.
Shannon notes that fans expect him to date quirky art girlies because of his body of work and “iron-deficient” appearance, but that’s just not what his dating history indicates.
“I think it’s a little bit of misogyny,” Shannon says on TikTok. “Here’s the twist. Timothée Chalamet is not Kylie Jenner’s type.”
For a full breakdown on why Kylie Jenner is Timothée Chalamet’s type, listen to Fluently Forward.
Clickbait is Dead. Long Live Pop Crave.
A piece by Jael Goldfine for Study Hall looks at how Pop Crave— a Twitter account started in 2015— has become one of the most powerful sources for entertainment news in the world.
Pop Crave was started in 2015 by Will Cosme, a former journalism student and Frank Ocean stan. He started the account while working at Home Depot.
The account earns money by doing (undisclosed) sponsored content for artists and record labels which mostly involves posting about new songs or album releases. At the moment, there are five 20-somethings working for Pop Crave— some paid, some not.
Goldfine spoke with Austin Ashburn, a 21-year-old journalism graduate who “came to Pop Crave via the Lorde and reality TV fan worlds.” Austin has been working at Pop Crave, unpaid, for two years.
“There’s no editing, review process (Cravers might consult each other on a post if the topic is controversial), no assigned coverage areas, and no shifts besides one UK-based Craver who tweets at night. This seems to be exactly how the account maintains its bot-like speed and reliability: all five posters are simply online constantly and tweet whenever they see ‘news,’” Goldfine found while interviewing Austin.
Goldfine spoke to one publicist who told her that Pop Crave is “ranked as a level two outlet in their press database” and that some artists would prefer a mention on the account to a feature interview with a publication.
“Essentially, Pop Crave has eliminated the need to click on clickbait, and its rise suggests people want to read this type of news directly on social media. Why would someone read a clunky article with a try-hard headline, when they could simply scroll past a tweet?” Goldfine explains.
Though Pop Crave is now in direct competition with entertainment outlets, journalists seem to have a positive view of the account. A writer for Vulture told Goldfine that even if “Pop Crave went away”, that doesn’t mean more people would read entertainment news. Another told her that TikTok “reporters” are more of a threat to entertainment journalists than Pop Crave.
As X (formerly Twitter) becomes increasingly unstable, the future of Pop Crave is up in the air. But for now, the account remains one of the top news sources for Gen Z users online— a claim few legacy media publications could make.
Read the full piece via Study Hall.
Ruby Franke & 8 Passengers: Deep dive into YouTube's most problematic family channel
This week’s infinite scroll podcast deep dives into the family vloggers, Ruby and Kevin Franke, of the 8 Passengers YouTube channel. We first explore who Ruby and Kevin are, how they started the 8 Passengers channel, and their history of documenting their family on YouTube before looking at the channel’s several controversies over the years. We finish by diving into Ruby and Kevin’s ties with the cult-like self-improvement group, Connexions, which led to the dissolution of their YouTube channel, their family, and now their freedom– as Ruby was arrested last week alongside the Connexions founder Jodi Hildebrandt on six counts of aggravated child abuse.
Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.